


run to home

by labocat



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Romance, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-07 02:12:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19075387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/labocat/pseuds/labocat
Summary: Peter's soulmark could be just about anything, he tells himself. An lopsided hourglass that could be just two triangles if you squint or if he flexes his thigh. It doesn't matter anyway, since his heart will never be theirs.





	run to home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tuesday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuesday/gifts).



> Thank you Tuesday, for being the hero this exchange needed! This is entirely non-Endgame compliant, with no timeskip and some handwave-y way of defeating Thanos, but lines up with Infinity War.

Really, what was surprising was that it had taken so long to be entirely naked in front of Mr. Stark. It wasn’t like he tended to wear anything under his suit other than underwear, and even that was negligible, especially once he started wearing red thongs — whose red became a matter of debates. It also wasn’t as if he hadn’t tried to contrive opportunities to strip off the suit in the lab under the pretense of some fix or other. He knew he was in shape, and knew that there was no way even he could have mistaken the way Mr. Stark’s eyes had lingered - it was what had inspired him to start this whole campaign of “upgrades”. He had to admit it had worked out pretty well: it had gotten him to invent all sorts of new formulas and additions to the suit that _did_ make patrols easier. It had also gotten him fully naked in front of Mr. Stark - Tony, he supposed, since the man’s hands were currently splayed out over his thighs, though that would take some getting used to.

What he didn’t know what to do with was the look on Tony’s face, frozen somewhere between shock and arousal, and while Peter hadn’t had a whole lot for comparison, he didn’t think his penis was _so_ different. But no, Tony was staring left of that, at his thigh, at his— _oh_.

Peter felt his face flush as he tried to shift, tried to close his legs and normally he would have been able to overpower Tony, if he had wanted to. He wanted to keep the way Tony’s grip was firm on his thighs but his thumbs were resting lightly, almost as if afraid that if he touched it, the mark there would disappear.

Peter knew what he was looking at: a small mark, about an inch high — a lopsided, angular hourglass he could picture even with his eyes closed and had doodled in the margins of more than one worksheet. He was lucky; not everyone got a soulmark so easily disguised as something entirely abstract. 

He’d tried not to dwell on it overly much — only a few hours per week on average (including a truly terrifying one in which he thought the mark might be a little too similar to Natasha’s Black Widow buckle) before deciding that he would just be perfectly happy being one of those people who never met their soulmate or if they ever did, was in a happy, fulfilling platonic relationship with them. Because he couldn’t ignore that even more than the mystery of his soulmark, his mind was full of Tony Stark. Beyond his childish idolization of Iron Man, he’d grown to know and cherish his moments with the man himself. He’d turned the memory of the moment he truly felt able to stand on the same level as Tony over and over in his head until he felt he could recreate the entire thing, smells and all. Tony hadn’t said a word, just slid over the blueprint for an upgrade to the gauntlet to Peter’s screen. His heart had been in his throat, but Peter hadn’t said a word either, trying to seem unaffected by tapping his foot along to the music over the lab speakers as he made a couple notes and sent it back. Tony had hardly paused in his soldering, but he’d tilted his head, then nodded before rotating the gauntlet and began taking a panel off to apply Peter’s adjustments. 

That evening, when they were done, instead of Peter shouldering his backpack and heading back to his apartment, he’d stayed for dinner — just simple pasta in meat sauce, standing around the island in the kitchen, but they’d talked. At first about nothing really, about how Peter’s physics course was the last credit he needed to graduate, about how Tony had finally removed the fire extinguisher from DUM-E, and then slowly deepened as the hours had. To how both of them still had nightmares about Titan, even though Thanos was gone and the stones scattered back to space. How both of them danced around the motivation for making their respective suits better, perfect. How both of them were scared of losing anyone again.

Somewhere around the third bowl of pasta and nearing midnight and back to stories about stupid mistakes and funny mishaps, Peter had caught Tony staring at him. Not in the way he did when he was mentally running diagnostics or staring at specs, but with eyes softer than Peter had ever seen them, the edges crinkled up in a smile free of any sarcasm or guardedness. It was then that Peter resolved two things. One: that maybe his plan to seduce Mr. Stark wasn’t so wild after all and he should do it, and two: that he would try and get Mr. Stark to smile like that more often. 

It had taken a truly staggering number of upgrades and new versions of his suit, more than a few internet searches for new shirts with science puns on them, and a lot of trying to will himself not to blush and be cool about casually stripping to at least the waist in the middle of the workshop.

But it had gotten him here, and it had been going pretty well so far, he’d thought. There’d been the promise of blowjobs, of seeing just how many of Peter’s senses had been heightened after the bite, and most of their clothes strewn about Tony’s apartment. But now Tony had stopped and was staring at his thigh, at his soulmark, no less, and Peter couldn’t figure out what had gone wrong.

“I mean, it doesn’t have to mean anything, lots of people don’t even meet their soulmate, and besides I never really tried holding out for them, so please, Mr. Stark — Tony, it’s...nothing?” Peter babbled, unable to stop the stream of words even if he tried.

“It’s not nothing,” Tony said tightly. “Did you ever wonder?”

This was so far from what Peter was expecting him to ask that it took him a second to answer. “Well, I mean, sure, who hasn’t? But I figured it was so abstract — I mean, it could be anything from an hourglass to two triangles together depending on if you squint or if I flex my thigh—” he did so, in demonstration, barely registering the way Tony swallowed hard as he did. “I stopped thinking about it so much after a while because I figured that if I met them, I met them, and if I didn’t, I wouldn’t know what I was missing, right? And. Um, well. And even if I did, I’d have to tell them I couldn’t be anything more than platonic with them because I’m pretty sure I’m not going to fall out of love with you any time soon.” 

Peter clapped his hands over his mouth the minute his own words registered in his brain, every instinct telling him to flee, but Tony’s hands still hadn’t moved, so he wouldn’t yet either. Then, finally Tony did, letting go with one hand to shift back to sit on his heels, pulling his boxers down with one hand. Automatically, Peter blushed, even though that was the point of all of this, but then he looked at the mark Tony had revealed and his breath caught in his throat.

“Y’know, a lot of people have asked me why I trim my beard in this pattern,” Tony said, seemingly apropos of nothing, going to release the band of his boxers, but then changing his mind, just standing to shuck them off. This meant he let go of Peter’s other thigh, but some still-functioning part of his brain told him Tony wouldn’t have taken off _more_ clothes if he was planning on leaving. 

And then it sank in. That their marks matched, that his mark was on Tony’s skin or Tony’s mark was on his, and then Tony was pulling him in for a kiss and his mind stopped for a glorious second.

“So…,” Peter said, eloquently, as they broke apart when his smile grew so wide as to make it difficult to keep kissing.

“Pretty sure you’re not gonna have a problem with telling your soulmate that Tony Stark has stolen your heart and swept you off your feet.”

Peter narrowed his eyes. “I don’t think I said it _quite_ like that…”

“Oh yeah? You sure about that?” And then Tony proceeded to hook one arm behind Peter’s knees, doing just that and moving to dump him on the bed, and for the second time that night, Peter let himself stop thinking and for the final time, let himself stop worrying what he’d do when he met who had his mark etched into their skin. The man who did was already etched into his heart.

**Author's Note:**

> Somehow I made it in the last 30 seconds of the exchange, and I apologize for yet own the fact that I immediately fell asleep instead of fixing typos


End file.
